A dreidel for the blind spins a new, year-round lesson

Published 6:30 am, Thursday, December 3, 2009

Jewish artist Marsha Plafkin Hurwitz wears a blindfold while playing with the Braidel, a dreidel she created with Braille letters﻿.

Jewish artist Marsha Plafkin Hurwitz wears a blindfold while playing with the Braidel, a dreidel she created with Braille letters﻿.

Photo: NICOLE NEROULIAS:, RELIGION NEWS SERVICE

A dreidel for the blind spins a new, year-round lesson

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LAKE OSWEGO, ORE. — For centuries of Hanukkah celebrations, the dreidel has served as both children's toy and religious symbol, marked with Hebrew letters that stand for “a great miracle happened there.”

Artist and Jewish scholar Marsha Plafkin Hurwitz's version of the four-sided top is more than child's play. It's also a conceptual sculpture, disability aid and sensitivity training tool.

She fashioned a metal dreidel featuring raised Braille bumps several years ago. First marketed as modern Judaica, “The Braidel (The Braille Dreidel)” joined the collections of the National Museum of American Jewish History and the Jewish Museum of London. Now it's finding fans among disability-rights advocates.

“It's taken on a life of its own,” Hurwitz said, leafing through a prototype of The Braidel Game manual at the kitchen table of her suburban home south of Portland, Ore. “This is something for Jews, Christians, Muslims, anyone who wants to engage how their tradition has treated disability.”

By making a tradition from the Jewish festival of lights accessible to the visually impaired, Hurwitz has set a much-needed example for the entire community, said Becca Hornstein, executive director of the Arizona-based Council for Jews With Special Needs, who shared the Braidel with the Jewish Special Educators International Consortium earlier this year.

“We're an old, old religion, but only in the last 25 to 30 years has there been a civil rights movement for people with disabilities,” she said. “Before that, people with certain disabilities were cared for but not really integrated into a lot of Jewish life. Bravo to Marsha for taking a common, everyday item in Jewish life and modifying it so that a person with a visual impairment can play it without thinking about it, without feeling singled out.”

Hurwitz took some artistic license with her design: the Braidel has a rounded base, rather than a dreidel's traditional sharp point , to prevent it from creating a safety hazard for blind or blindfolded players. She says she borrowed an abbreviation used on Israeli dreidels for “a great miracle happened here” to show players that miracles can be personal, everyday experiences, not just distant events to occasionally commemorate.

Sales have increased leading up to Hanukkah, which begins this year at sunset Dec. 11, but Hurwitz said she designed the Braidel for year-round use, both within the Jewish community and beyond.

Sold through Hurwitz's Web site, Art as Responsa (www.art-responsa.com), the Braidel costs $24; the game, which comes with blindfolds and playing chips, runs from $75 for four players to $375 for a classroom set. Eighteen percent of proceeds are donated to Helen Keller International.